Angelbird av pro sx 160gb have been good for me so far and also fast along with not getting hot. They also have a 330gb in same av pro sx line which I haven’t tried but assume should be similar to performance of the 160gb. Delkin black 325gb has been good as well for speed and heat.
Hi both, I agree it’s a minefield and have been through the same issues. For what I do I find 160gb more than enough especially when using 2 bodies. However, I think I’d be looking at a much bigger card if I was shooting sports in high burst. I’m using a mixture of anglebird SX, Delkin Black and prograde gold. I think the latter is a good all rounder and cheaper compared to the first two. Not sure it would be what you want for birding and sport’s etc but it’s all down to use case and if you’re shooting professionally. No doubt about anglebird SX and Delkin Black for everything but horrendously expensive for the larger capacity. Really interested to hear what everyone else is using and for what 😀
I've stopped buying Sandisk after Western Digital bought them. The one CFexpress Sandisk I had got very hot and it wasn't even that fast. The only Sony SD cards I ever bought turned out to be the ones that corrupted video files. Never again. Sabrent CFexpress are great. The 1700MB/s 1TB cards are crazy and don't get hot at all. Have one in the Z8 and one in the X2D. If I need SD cards again I'll also buy those from Sabrent. They build good stuff, not just storage even. They also have things like network adapters, also work like a charm.
I agree that it is confusing. I tried a few brands. For the money, I like Delkin Power. For small size CPExpB the 128Gb is very good, high speed, stays cool and reliable. You can go up to their Black series but the Power is less expensive with very comparable speeds. For larger sizes I skipped straight to the Delkin Power 650Gb size. They provide just over 1Tb capacity and VERY fast read/write speeds. It is not worth paying more or going for bigger sizes. I shoot at 15fps in HE* by default but 20fps if it is action. I am not sure why a 650Gb card has 1.03Tb capacity but they do. I buy from the very large retailer in NY ending in &H. Very highly recommended.
I cannot see past the Angelbird AV PRO CFexpress SE 1TB Type B. Huge value for money and quicker than anything I have needed. SD’s are Angelbird 512Gb v60. Angelbird are stellar. I no longer use the SD as a backup for obvious reasons when shooting wildlife or birds. If I was doing weddings, that would be different.
I use the Angelbird 160 GB CF Express and the SABRENT SD Card 256GB V60 in my Z8 (hobbyist). The Angelbird is really fast and it was 230 € when I bought it and it is now 125 €! The Angelbird also cracked a several months ago at one edge but since that the housing is fine. I am thinking of buying the Angelbird PRO CFexpress SE Type B 512 GB which is currently at 125€!!! The Company is in Austria 🇦🇹, close to my home! Thanks for your great content 📸…
That was after 1 year. It is still,in use and I do not think (hope) that more of the housing will brake. Since it is a great card, I will probably by the slower 512 GB for my next holidays to AUSI/Tasi on Thursday.😊
After I had my Lexar cf express type B start overheating like crazy I was in the same situation. I switched to Delkin Power (green ones) and have not had one issue. I used to think 64gb was enough then 128gb was enough now I use 256gb because the Z6iii writes the video only to the Cf express but I kept the 128gb SD and this is perfect for me. I shot a 5 hour event with 2700 photos and about 10 min of 4k video and had a great day. I just wait for a sale and pick them up then.. Also have a couple Delkin Black cards not one issue.
@@RussandLoz I've always used the V90 SD cards and the only real difference I have noticed is when I'm importing into Lightroom and I think it's just smoother work flow. I don't notice any drastic difference but maybe that's the point. Better to have the speed and not need it then to need it and not have it. Faster can't hurt.
After about six years of use my Lexar XQD card wiped out the card slot of my D500 while on a trip to a remote area, fortunately I had a back-up camera with a Sony XQD card installed. The camera wasn't totally wasted and worked fine with the SD card, I ended up giving the camera away rather than sending it in for repair. When I purchased the Z8 (on its release day) I bought a Delkin Power 128 GB CF Express card and a very expensive 128 GB SD card for the second slot. Set for overflow I have only written to the SD card when I forgot to replace the CF express card after downloading the photos. Shooting mainly wildlife I have found the Delkin Power card very acceptable for both speed and capacity (approx 3300 H* RAW photos) and, so far, reliability. I have never exceeded the card capacity in a single session. I don't shoot much video. I think I will be replacing it for reliability reasons (due to the in-out routine when downloading causing gradual physical degradation to the card and risk to the camera), not sure when though.
@@daveconlin669 That’s why I’m trying to find a solid way of downloading the photos without removing them card from the camera. It just seems fussy and capable of error. Rather than just using it with a card reader. Which should be the same really
@@RussandLoz I think that years of jamming the camera usb connector in and out could run into similar issues. A wireless solution would be perfect, in this case speed would be an issue.
Hi Russ, I am merely a hobbyist, so my needs are very simple only needing SD UHS-1. So to be honest I'm probably in Tier 4 ! I use Sandisk 128 GB, strangely the larger cards have better performance.
Angelbird CF express 512gb AV pro se large capacity and fast enough for everything you are going to need. Photo and 4k video. ForSD cards ProGrade 128gb V60's
You also need to mention how your setup is, as the second card (SD) might make a big difference throttling your shooting speed depending on if set to backup/overflow etc.
I use SanDisk Extreme Pro CFexpress Card Type B - 128 GB. Feels rugged to me! Read 1700 MB -Write 1200 MB. I do wedding and event photography with a Nikon Z8.
Sandisk, ProGrade, Delkin and Sony are the only CFExpress Cards Type A&B that I have used and they work great. I have never had a problem with SD cards from a lot of different companies V30, V60 and V90. V90 can record at lower writes but I prefer these type of cards for the faster transfer speeds of recorded pics and videos to the computer. I have one manufacturer that has given me problems with the Type B CFExpress Card and it affected the Nikon Z6III camera only. While recording video 4K50 on up just shaking the camera a little it froze. Had to pop out the battery to reset the camera. When recording this card with the camera on a tripod there was no problem. Also I did videos using this problematic manufacturers cards (3) different ones in other multiple cameras and there was no problem. Nikon will get back to me what they think about my problem later this week. I have updated the firmware to the 1.02 for the Z6III and it did perform well on the 4K but froze the camera twice at 6K. So the only thing that has come out with this Drama I started recording the V90 SD card and it had no problems with the 6K 60 video. Cheers!
I wouldn't waste my money on any of them. Get a good eSATA brand express card and put it in a caddy. Worst case, you can open the caddy and directly connect into a PC. These are 10% slower than my Delkin Black, but 1/2 the cost for 5 times the size. CFexpress cards are just repackaged laptop drives. I have a 2tb card that cost 100 pound. 8k raw recording / no problem. Overheating is same or better than other cards.
This is exactly what I did. Make your own, and if you get a high-quality m.2 drive, the results will be excellent, and you get a huge amount of storage at a really great price. The cost-savings alone makes it worth the effort of installing a "m.2 2033" drive into the caddy/converter.
@@MookieMc Exactly. It's not home made. It's a quality drive through a pin connector. That's all. The quality of the internals always matters, and these brands such as Delkin as simple rebranding M.2 drives. There is nothing between the M.2 drive and the camera.
I used Prograde Gold on a Z6II. I look out for Black Friday deals on Amazon. Savings!!! The question I have is why are dual slots not dual CFexpress... They can be cheaper than an SD V90 and definitely faster.
Tier 1 - Delkin Black, should get above 1440mb/s in Z8 and runs cooler during 4k video increasing reliability. Tier 2 - Manfrotto 128gb, about 1440mb/s but not as good heat dissipation but reliable and cheaper. Finally Transcend 820 512gb - reliable, cheap as chips but slow at about 295mb/s in your Z8. fine for backup card / non payed photography. I find the slower speed results in lower temps thus not an issue and gives me huge capacity (Also never had a Transcend card fail over last 14 years). My Z6II / D850 max speed is about 330mb/s thusi use my old XQD cards (400mb/s) for that type of camera.
@@RussandLoz Paid work, tier 1 or 2 fine for photos, but as you do video at 4k i think you will have to pay the extra for Tier 1. But other cards fine for most situations. I have the transcend 820 and its burst speed is about 900mb/s initially before dropping to 280mb/s after its cache is filled, whereas the Delkin and Manfrotto seem bottomless as they have true high transfer speeds.
The SD card slot will bottleneck the CF/XQD slot so if you use it as backup than your current XQD is still faster so you don't need Tier 1 speeds. The Z8 SD slot maxes out at 240MB/s. Tier 1: Delkin Black CFe for lower temperature than Sandisk & Sony. Delkin Black SD for build quality, it uses one-piece case compared to two-piece like many others. Tier 2: Nextorage B2 SE CFe, the company is founded by former Sony memory workers. PNY EliteX-Pro60 SD, the 256GB and higher are as fast as Sandisk/Sony V60 cards for less. Tier 3: Keep your current cards 😂
just my 2 cents as i just upgraded my camera to a z6(3) for video and had to upgrade the card .....yes, it is oddly confusing -you would think manufacturers would want to be clear about their products -usually when they are not clear there is some nefarious reason for it. Any who -ive never had any problems with whatever SD card in my older DSLR.... HOWEVER, now with my 6(3) i upgraded to "OWC Atlas Ultra 325GB High-Performance CFexpress Type B Memory Card" (1700 R 1500w) -and I have no idea whats going on, but it runs way hotter than it should -there's no way my card or camera will last.... its on fire and i haven't eve shot video yet -just some test photos .... sooo -thats all i got for now.... hope to see what you and other say soon .... as always -love the videos -AND REALLY LOVE you guys are actually social on a social platform
I have found the lexar silver 512gb cf express type b cards to be great in my z9. I can get 5700 shots on each card in lossless compressed and they’re plenty fast enough. Using 20 fps lossless compressed on the z9 for 20 seconds continuous shooting I got 293 shots on the lexar compared to 140 on the Xqd card you showed in your video and 327 on my prograde 165gb cobalt cf express your b card. I originally got the progrades as reviews said they were very fast but the capacity only allows for 1800 shots. I like the peace of mind with the capacity of the lexar cards.
@@RussandLoz yes definitely far behind. After watching a lot of reviews I feel like the specs of some cards are over sold. For example the lexar silver line wasn’t described as an amazing top tier card but I’ve had no issues using it for fast action wildlife and 4K 10 bit n log footage. That said cf express is definitely better than Xqd and worth the upgrade!
For the lowest tier, I recommended the micro-sd card SanDisk Extrem Pro 256GB 200/140 MB/s UHS-I(smaller size will be slower) it come with a full-size sdcard adapter. It's ~35% cheaper than the same size, same speed card from same brand(don't know why). I don't shoot video or sports/wildlife don't need that much of speed. I bought 2 cards since I use 1 micro-sd card for backup in my Nikon ZF.
Delkin Black for all genres, used throughout 23 & 24 without any issues.
I’m down to 2 brands that I’ll trust / use. ProGrade Cobalt (or Gold is fine if you’re not pushing high frame rate), and Delkin Black. My 2 recs.
@@csc-photo Delkin seems to be a reoccurring brand worth looking into
Angelbird av pro sx 160gb have been good for me so far and also fast along with not getting hot. They also have a 330gb in same av pro sx line which I haven’t tried but assume should be similar to performance of the 160gb. Delkin black 325gb has been good as well for speed and heat.
Hi both, I agree it’s a minefield and have been through the same issues.
For what I do I find 160gb more than enough especially when using 2 bodies. However, I think I’d be looking at a much bigger card if I was shooting sports in high burst. I’m using a mixture of anglebird SX, Delkin Black and prograde gold. I think the latter is a good all rounder and cheaper compared to the first two. Not sure it would be what you want for birding and sport’s etc but it’s all down to use case and if you’re shooting professionally. No doubt about anglebird SX and Delkin Black for everything but horrendously expensive for the larger capacity. Really interested to hear what everyone else is using and for what 😀
Thanks, yes I'm starting to build a picture of what works well and the brands. Delkin seems to be a solid choice.
I've stopped buying Sandisk after Western Digital bought them. The one CFexpress Sandisk I had got very hot and it wasn't even that fast.
The only Sony SD cards I ever bought turned out to be the ones that corrupted video files. Never again.
Sabrent CFexpress are great. The 1700MB/s 1TB cards are crazy and don't get hot at all. Have one in the Z8 and one in the X2D.
If I need SD cards again I'll also buy those from Sabrent. They build good stuff, not just storage even. They also have things like network adapters, also work like a charm.
I agree that it is confusing. I tried a few brands. For the money, I like Delkin Power. For small size CPExpB the 128Gb is very good, high speed, stays cool and reliable. You can go up to their Black series but the Power is less expensive with very comparable speeds. For larger sizes I skipped straight to the Delkin Power 650Gb size. They provide just over 1Tb capacity and VERY fast read/write speeds. It is not worth paying more or going for bigger sizes. I shoot at 15fps in HE* by default but 20fps if it is action. I am not sure why a 650Gb card has 1.03Tb capacity but they do.
I buy from the very large retailer in NY ending in &H. Very highly recommended.
I cannot see past the Angelbird AV PRO CFexpress SE 1TB Type B. Huge value for money and quicker than anything I have needed.
SD’s are Angelbird 512Gb v60.
Angelbird are stellar. I no longer use the SD as a backup for obvious reasons when shooting wildlife or birds.
If I was doing weddings, that would be different.
I use the Angelbird 160 GB CF Express and the SABRENT SD Card 256GB V60 in my Z8 (hobbyist). The Angelbird is really fast and it was 230 € when I bought it and it is now 125 €! The Angelbird also cracked a several months ago at one edge but since that the housing is fine. I am thinking of buying the Angelbird PRO CFexpress SE Type B 512 GB which is currently at 125€!!! The Company is in Austria 🇦🇹, close to my home! Thanks for your great content 📸…
@@blessingulrich9137 Thanks, how long did you have it before it cracked?
That was after 1 year. It is still,in use and I do not think (hope) that more of the housing will brake. Since it is a great card, I will probably by the slower 512 GB for my next holidays to AUSI/Tasi on Thursday.😊
After I had my Lexar cf express type B start overheating like crazy I was in the same situation. I switched to Delkin Power (green ones) and have not had one issue. I used to think 64gb was enough then 128gb was enough now I use 256gb because the Z6iii writes the video only to the Cf express but I kept the 128gb SD and this is perfect for me. I shot a 5 hour event with 2700 photos and about 10 min of 4k video and had a great day. I just wait for a sale and pick them up then.. Also have a couple Delkin Black cards not one issue.
Yes I may wait for xmas sales! Thanks for the advise, 128gb will be fine but will I get anything noticeably different from a faster card than I have?
@@RussandLoz I've always used the V90 SD cards and the only real difference I have noticed is when I'm importing into Lightroom and I think it's just smoother work flow. I don't notice any drastic difference but maybe that's the point. Better to have the speed and not need it then to need it and not have it. Faster can't hurt.
Delkin Black!
After about six years of use my Lexar XQD card wiped out the card slot of my D500 while on a trip to a remote area, fortunately I had a back-up camera with a Sony XQD card installed. The camera wasn't totally wasted and worked fine with the SD card, I ended up giving the camera away rather than sending it in for repair. When I purchased the Z8 (on its release day) I bought a Delkin Power 128 GB CF Express card and a very expensive 128 GB SD card for the second slot. Set for overflow I have only written to the SD card when I forgot to replace the CF express card after downloading the photos. Shooting mainly wildlife I have found the Delkin Power card very acceptable for both speed and capacity (approx 3300 H* RAW photos) and, so far, reliability. I have never exceeded the card capacity in a single session. I don't shoot much video. I think I will be replacing it for reliability reasons (due to the in-out routine when downloading causing gradual physical degradation to the card and risk to the camera), not sure when though.
@@daveconlin669 That’s why I’m trying to find a solid way of downloading the photos without removing them card from the camera. It just seems fussy and capable of error. Rather than just using it with a card reader. Which should be the same really
@@RussandLoz I think that years of jamming the camera usb connector in and out could run into similar issues. A wireless solution would be perfect, in this case speed would be an issue.
Hi Russ, I am merely a hobbyist, so my needs are very simple only needing SD UHS-1. So to be honest I'm probably in Tier 4 ! I use Sandisk 128 GB, strangely the larger cards have better performance.
It looks like my XQD is considered slow, even though I've never had speed issue with it, maybe I'm missing out on something
Angelbird CF express 512gb AV pro se large capacity and fast enough for everything you are going to need. Photo and 4k video.
ForSD cards ProGrade 128gb V60's
You also need to mention how your setup is, as the second card (SD) might make a big difference throttling your shooting speed depending on if set to backup/overflow etc.
Good point, but SD has a low limit which would do that?
I use SanDisk Extreme Pro CFexpress Card Type B - 128 GB. Feels rugged to me! Read 1700 MB -Write 1200 MB. I do wedding and event photography with a Nikon Z8.
Great replies ! Thanks ! When I’m back from hols I need to read through them all very carefully and try and arrive at a conclusion!
@@lozzom delkin black seems to be popular. But what capacity
Sandisk, ProGrade, Delkin and Sony are the only CFExpress Cards Type A&B that I have used and they work great. I have never had a problem with SD cards from a lot of different companies V30, V60 and V90. V90 can record at lower writes but I prefer these type of cards for the faster transfer speeds of recorded pics and videos to the computer. I have one manufacturer that has given me problems with the Type B CFExpress Card and it affected the Nikon Z6III camera only. While recording video 4K50 on up just shaking the camera a little it froze. Had to pop out the battery to reset the camera. When recording this card with the camera on a tripod there was no problem. Also I did videos using this problematic manufacturers cards (3) different ones in other multiple cameras and there was no problem. Nikon will get back to me what they think about my problem later this week. I have updated the firmware to the 1.02 for the Z6III and it did perform well on the 4K but froze the camera twice at 6K. So the only thing that has come out with this Drama I started recording the V90 SD card and it had no problems with the 6K 60 video. Cheers!
I wouldn't waste my money on any of them. Get a good eSATA brand express card and put it in a caddy. Worst case, you can open the caddy and directly connect into a PC. These are 10% slower than my Delkin Black, but 1/2 the cost for 5 times the size. CFexpress cards are just repackaged laptop drives. I have a 2tb card that cost 100 pound. 8k raw recording / no problem. Overheating is same or better than other cards.
@@xiaoabrose nice idea but I’d be too scared taking a wedding with one of those LOL
This is exactly what I did. Make your own, and if you get a high-quality m.2 drive, the results will be excellent, and you get a huge amount of storage at a really great price. The cost-savings alone makes it worth the effort of installing a "m.2 2033" drive into the caddy/converter.
@@MookieMc Exactly. It's not home made. It's a quality drive through a pin connector. That's all. The quality of the internals always matters, and these brands such as Delkin as simple rebranding M.2 drives. There is nothing between the M.2 drive and the camera.
I used Prograde Gold on a Z6II. I look out for Black Friday deals on Amazon. Savings!!! The question I have is why are dual slots not dual CFexpress... They can be cheaper than an SD V90 and definitely faster.
Tier 1 - Delkin Black, should get above 1440mb/s in Z8 and runs cooler during 4k video increasing reliability. Tier 2 - Manfrotto 128gb, about 1440mb/s but not as good heat dissipation but reliable and cheaper. Finally Transcend 820 512gb - reliable, cheap as chips but slow at about 295mb/s in your Z8. fine for backup card / non payed photography. I find the slower speed results in lower temps thus not an issue and gives me huge capacity (Also never had a Transcend card fail over last 14 years). My Z6II / D850 max speed is about 330mb/s thusi use my old XQD cards (400mb/s) for that type of camera.
Fantastic! This is what we needed to know! Guess the first tier is expensive but worth it over Tier 2?
@@RussandLoz Paid work, tier 1 or 2 fine for photos, but as you do video at 4k i think you will have to pay the extra for Tier 1. But other cards fine for most situations. I have the transcend 820 and its burst speed is about 900mb/s initially before dropping to 280mb/s after its cache is filled, whereas the Delkin and Manfrotto seem bottomless as they have true high transfer speeds.
The SD card slot will bottleneck the CF/XQD slot so if you use it as backup than your current XQD is still faster so you don't need Tier 1 speeds. The Z8 SD slot maxes out at 240MB/s.
Tier 1:
Delkin Black CFe for lower temperature than Sandisk & Sony.
Delkin Black SD for build quality, it uses one-piece case compared to two-piece like many others.
Tier 2:
Nextorage B2 SE CFe, the company is founded by former Sony memory workers.
PNY EliteX-Pro60 SD, the 256GB and higher are as fast as Sandisk/Sony V60 cards for less.
Tier 3: Keep your current cards 😂
@@Rocky_KO I usually use the SD for fine JPEGs so shouldn’t bottle neck it really. But great advice. I’ll look into those. 😊
just my 2 cents as i just upgraded my camera to a z6(3) for video and had to upgrade the card .....yes, it is oddly confusing -you would think manufacturers would want to be clear about their products -usually when they are not clear there is some nefarious reason for it. Any who -ive never had any problems with whatever SD card in my older DSLR.... HOWEVER, now with my 6(3) i upgraded to "OWC Atlas Ultra 325GB High-Performance CFexpress Type B Memory Card" (1700 R 1500w) -and I have no idea whats going on, but it runs way hotter than it should -there's no way my card or camera will last.... its on fire and i haven't eve shot video yet -just some test photos .... sooo -thats all i got for now.... hope to see what you and other say soon .... as always -love the videos -AND REALLY LOVE you guys are actually social on a social platform
I use a SSD to CFexpress adapter from aliexpress in my Z6. Probably wouldn't cut it for high speed but it works and is cheaper than any cfexpress card
I use Pergear. The card gets hot when I download, but 2 years on great. I think the high speed card is good. Why have multi cards.
I have found the lexar silver 512gb cf express type b cards to be great in my z9. I can get 5700 shots on each card in lossless compressed and they’re plenty fast enough.
Using 20 fps lossless compressed on the z9 for 20 seconds continuous shooting I got 293 shots on the lexar compared to 140 on the Xqd card you showed in your video and 327 on my prograde 165gb cobalt cf express your b card.
I originally got the progrades as reviews said they were very fast but the capacity only allows for 1800 shots. I like the peace of mind with the capacity of the lexar cards.
@@raphbritton Interesting with the burst speeds vs capacity. Xqd card is far behind then
@@RussandLoz yes definitely far behind. After watching a lot of reviews I feel like the specs of some cards are over sold. For example the lexar silver line wasn’t described as an amazing top tier card but I’ve had no issues using it for fast action wildlife and 4K 10 bit n log footage. That said cf express is definitely better than Xqd and worth the upgrade!
btw u guys think ull do a nikon z 135mm plena vs 135mm sigma .... and maybe throw in the Z 85mm 1.2 .... review any time soon!? 🍻
@@comment_below We don’t get sent any lenses from Nikon. Only the ones we buy unfortunately
For the lowest tier, I recommended the micro-sd card SanDisk Extrem Pro 256GB 200/140 MB/s UHS-I(smaller size will be slower) it come with a full-size sdcard adapter. It's ~35% cheaper than the same size, same speed card from same brand(don't know why). I don't shoot video or sports/wildlife don't need that much of speed. I bought 2 cards since I use 1 micro-sd card for backup in my Nikon ZF.
Stay far away from Sandisk
CFExpress version 4.0